[Recent Homebuild] Crashing Issues

[Jonnodawg]

Hi Guys,

First off i apologise if i have posted in the wrong area as I am not sure of any other places i could post.

I recently build a computer with the following specs (computer is now roughly a week old):

Intel ATX E8400 CORE 2 DUO /3.0GHz/6MB/1333FSB/LGA775
Asus P5QL-E ExpGATE S775 P43 DDR2 FSB1600 PCIE RAID GBLAN 1394 ATX
OCZ DDR2 4G(2x2G)PC-6400 800Mhz Reaper HPC(2RPR800C44G)
Seagate SATAII 500GB 32m Cache
Antec TWELVE HUNDRED Full Tower Gaming Case NO PSU
Antec ATX EarthWatts 650W
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5 PCI E TVO

I have recently started encountering crashes which i believe are being caused by the graphics card. I have only experienced these issues playing Warhammer Online and Crysis, although i have yet to try any other games over long play periods.

I feel the cause is because of the video card gets too hot and causes these crashes. I am not sure if this is a legitamate reason but the error occurs like this.

The computer will lock up and some of the pixels on screen shift (several little even size squares will shift over and computer locks up) this lasts about 5 seconds then the screen goes blank. After it does this the screen loads up again but it is just a whole set of vertical brown lines scaling across and whatever sound is playing just goes on a loop.

Does this sound like an overheating issue? Maybe a driver issue? I am not sure but i was a bit sceptical about it being heat, simply because the case itself seems to be very good at cooling and contains HEAPS of fans. I downloaded the latest catalyst drivers off the ATI site but i was considering getting the Omega drivers, although i am not sure if they currently support the 4870 series.

Can any one give me any feedback on what they think it might be?

 

[Proximon]

I would look at motherboard drivers first.

Then I would test the RAM overnight.

You should get a program like Sensor View, which will monitor and graph your GPU temps while you game, to see if they are going too high. It's not the best program, and not always accurate... but it's free and will work for this.

Use Real Temp to monitor your CPU core temps.

Of course, check that your memory has been set correctly in the BIOS.

 

[bf2gameplaya]

Yes, this doesn't sound like hardware (or software) failure, but a fault condition...could be heat, could be electrical.

Standard troubleshooting techniques should solve the problem, which include re-checking all drivers (mobo, audio, video, etc.) and get good readouts on temperature over time (RivaTuner is nice for this).

What you describe could be an audio driver error (looping audio from a stalled buffer) or video ram bit-flipping from stress (the blocks and lines).

Even the most experienced troubleshooter would have to investigate each issue methodically, isolating the cause. Fun, eh?

 

[Jonnodawg]

Ok thanks guys, when it comes to knowing the standard temps etc for each piece of hardware i probably wouldnt know where to start.. but once i get some info i might post them on here just to see what u guys think

 

[Proximon]

By the way, where did you find this "recent homebuild" category? It doesn't appear for me as a separate forum, yet I see you posted in it somehow?

 

[Jonnodawg]

Haha, it doesnt exist its just what i typed in for the thread name =D

 

[Proximon]

Doh Ya got me.